


nothing's wrong but nothing's true

by jaldon



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Robins, Gen, Light Angst, batfamily, theyre both already dead and theres nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaldon/pseuds/jaldon
Summary: Her voice is perfectly even when she speaks again. “So we’re dead then.”"Yeah."





	nothing's wrong but nothing's true

**Author's Note:**

> title is from buzzcut season by lorde

There’s a girl. 

He doesn’t notice at first, because things are quiet here- too quiet- but then she hesitantly taps his shoulder. 

The fog hangs around her. The fog hangs around anything and Jason’s not sure if there’s anything else. (It’s better than the blackness before he arrived here, though, infinitely better.)

“Hello,” she says, and she seems uncertain. Her eyes are full of concern, her blonde curls fall over her shoulders and move when she tilts her head towards him. “Are you-”

“Jason.”

“I’ve heard about you.” So she’s one of Bruce’s then. Something dark and bitter starts to curl in the bottom of Jason’s stomach, but he pushes it down. She’s dead now, isn’t she?

“What,” he says. “Don’t be like him, don’t be stupid like him, don’t  _ die _ like him?”

The girl just shrugs. “Something like that.” She’s not worried, not scared. He can’t read her. (Could he ever read anyone though? He doesn’t remember.) Her voice is perfectly even when she speaks again. “So we’re dead then.”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never met someone here before, he assumed it would just be him for- well, for forever. He was alone, when he came to be in this place, and maybe he’s a little bit jealous. He slowly reaches out to her and places his hand on her shoulder. 

She looks up at him with sad eyes. “I thought so. But I wasn’t sure. I hoped-” She breaks off. 

He gives her time. (He’d needed it, and he didn’t have anyone to explain.)

She tries again. “I thought maybe this was some weird dream.” She shrugs. 

He’d thought so too, at first. There had been the darkness, and then the gray, the white, the fog creeping in around him until he could think. Time didn’t seem to pass, nothing did. He was alone, with his thoughts, and it didn’t feel real. Maybe, he had thought, it was a dream. 

He never woke up. 

It took a little while to realize that he was dead. It had hurt. (He didn’t remember his mother and the crowbar and the explosion and the Joker. That came later, in pieces.)

“Do you,” Jason starts, and then he stops because it’s a hard question. “Do you remember your death?”

She thinks for a moment, tilting back on her heels. Then she shakes her head. “No. It’s all hazy.” She pauses. “Will it come back?”

“It did for me.” (It was terrifying, at first. He could feel the crowbar coming down on his back. He screamed and screamed and no one was there.) “Do you want it to come back?” 

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she’s quiet for a while. Thinking. Then, “It’s my fault.”

“No,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, it is, I should have-”

“It’s not your fault,” Jason says. “Don’t blame yourself for your death. They did that to me.  _ I _ did that to me. Don’t do it to yourself.” He thinks, for a moment, about his final moments. The blood. The echoing warehouse. The ticking clock. “I don’t know what happened to you, but whatever it was, you couldn’t have done anything to stop it. And you certainly can’t  _ now _ .”

She swallows. “Did you know? What they were saying about you? Don’t be like Jason?”

Yes, he remembers. At first there was silence but then, every so often, he’d hear a whisper. (The first time he heard Bruce’s voice after his death, it was something along the lines of  _ he can’t be gone Alfred. It’s my fault _ . And there was Alfred with  _ Master Bruce, there was nothing you could have done. _ He cried. For how long, he didn’t know.)

“Sometimes… you hear things. When they’re talking about you. Snippets and bits and pieces. It’s… it’s strongest when they’re talking to you.” He stops. “So yes, I heard them. Talking about me, blaming me.”

“It’s not your fault either, you know,” she says. Maybe it wasn’t, but the  _ don’t get yourself killed like Jason didn’t help. _ And then “So you can hear them?”

“Not usually. Only when it’s about you. And, you know, people talk about you more at the beginning. Less, over time.” 

“Oh,” she says. They’re quiet for a moment. She walks around, spins in a circle, does a cartwheel. Reaches out into the fog. “Is it always like this?” 

He can hear the question in her words. Is there anything else? “As far as I know, this is all there is.You can go however far you want, but you always end up in the same place."

She smiles. “Guess I’ll be right back then.” Turning, she walks away from him until she disappears. And then she taps his shoulder. He turns and smiles. 

“See?” 

“So this is all there is, then. All there is for us.”

“Yeah,” he says. It had been disappointing, at first. He hadn’t wanted there to be nothing. He hadn’t wanted to be trapped. (He hadn’t wanted to be dead, either, but it is what it is.)

“Sorry excuse for heaven,” she laughs. 

“Maybe it’s hell,” he replies. He never thought he deserved to go to heaven, anyways.

“Maybe.” 

A pause. 

“It doesn’t feel like fog,” she says. 

“I don’t think it is.” 

“Then what  _ do _ you think it is?” she asks, swiping at the air around them. 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” 

She turns away. For a moment, he sees her in Gotham, a dark silhouette against a misty night. He sees bloody knuckles and a scowl and hair falling out from under a hood. She turns back and the picture is gone. 

“Is there anyone else here?” 

“You’re the first person that I’ve seen.” At first he had been lonely, trapped in this infinite stretch of milky whiteness, with only his thoughts. It got better, eventually. He was lonely still, but it mattered less and less. 

“So it’s just us two, forever?” She asks, smiling. 

“I suppose it is.” He didn’t have to be lonely anymore. There was someone here, someone who had been in a similar situation, someone who probably knew what he had gone through- a friend. 

“I’m Stephanie,” she says, putting out her hand for him to shake. “I was Robin like you. And now I’m dead, just like you.”

“I’m Jason,” he says, shaking her hand, even though she already knows. “Welcome to the Dead Robins Club, I guess.” They grin at each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first fic in this fandom, i hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
